Teen Entrepreneurs Cash In On Their Skills

August 15, 1999|By Marya Smith. Special to the Tribune.

Having outgrown their lemonade stands, a number of Chicago-area teenagers are busy running home-based businesses this summer. While their peers are baby-sitting, caddying or flipping hamburgers, these teens are earning money in self-created ventures that include a back-yard basketball camp, a full-scale landscaping service and corporate Web site design businesses.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 7 million 16- to 19-year-olds are employed full or part time, with 87,000 listed as self-employed. This latter figure encompasses a rarefied group of teen entrepreneurs.

Brendan O'Connell, now 17, was shooting hoops in the back yard of his River Forest home in 1994 when his mother said to him, "You're so good at basketball, you ought to teach it." Brendan followed up on her suggestion and gave it a shot.

That first summer, he and his older brother Sean, now 19 and a sophomore at Illinois Wesleyan University, ran a two-week basketball camp in their back yard for 15 neighborhood grade schoolers. Now in its fifth year, the camp boasts approximately 70 participants from kindergarten to 7th grade, operates two separate two-week sessions (two hours a day, five days a week) and includes on its staff the youngest O'Connell brother, Paddy, 15, a sophomore at Oak Park-River Forest High School.

The camp has also expanded physically, with older boys and girls drilling at a rented park facility court and younger campers at the O'Connells' back-yard hoop.

"Young kids are the heart and soul of the camp," says Brendan, a 1999 graduate of Oak Park-River Forest High School who will attend Carleton College this fall. "They're the most fun. Basketball isn't as important to the camp as teaching things like sportsmanship, but one of the most rewarding things is to see a kid make his or her first point."

O'Connell begins organizing the summer camp as early as March. "There's a lot of preparation, expenses to figure and other details," he says. "What I like best is not having a boss. With your own business, you're able to innovate, do things your own way."

For the past two summers, the camp has boasted a full enrollment. "When Brendan donated a camp session to our grade school raffle this spring, people really bid it up because so many parents want their kids in the camp," says River Forest resident Colleen Horrigan, whose two sons have attended the camp since its first year. "The kids learn excellent basketball mechanics and have fun competing, but they also grow up seeing older boys being nice to younger kids, and it rubs off."

The O'Connell brothers charge $65 for a two-week session and $100 for four weeks. After covering expenses such as insurance, T-shirts, fliers and prizes, the brothers have earned more than $2,500 each year for the past two summers, money that goes to their college tuition funds.

Eighteen-year-old Dave Swanson's landscape service also started small and has grown as steadily as grass in springtime. As a 6th grader, he was the typical neighborhood kid with the family's power mower, earning spending money by mowing a handful of lawns. Today the 1999 graduate of Fremd High School in Palatine provides lawn maintenance for 91 houses a week.

Swanson, who will be a freshman at Illinois State University this fall, now has four employees, a fleet of two trucks and two trailers detailed with his company logo, his own phone line, two cell phones and two two-way radios as well as equipment such as aerators, thatchers and rototillers filling half the family garage.

Like many budding entrepreneurs, Swanson kept thinking of ways to expand. By 7th grade he was mowing 12 yards, and in 8th grade he used his earnings to purchase a commercial lawn mower. "I figured I could cut my time in half with the big mower, and that's how it worked out: I had 25 clients that summer but spent the same amount of time as the year before," Swanson explains. The young entrepreneur currently averages $25 per client per week.

"After I pay expenses, I pay myself a salary, and the rest of the money goes back into my company to pay for equipment," Swanson says. "I make significantly more than a summer job would pay."

While broadening DLS Landscaping Inc. to include seeding, plant removal, mulching and other landscaping tasks, Swanson was an award-winning participant in Junior Achievement Inc., a non-profit organization that offers classes in business and free enterprise. "I could have kept my lawn-care business small, with one pickup truck," Swanson says, "but Junior Achievement opened my eyes and gave me the inspiration and tools to go bigger."

There have also been growing pains. "Last year I stopped hiring friends because I realized they sometimes think they can slack off, but I lose money if they're too laid back," Swanson says. "I also didn't want to lose friendships over business."

Currently the Palatine teen divides his time between working outdoors with his crew and managing paperwork and customer contact.